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Inset: Eric Contreras (Miami-Dade Police). Background: David Contreras is handcuffed after he”s sentenced for killing his son Eric Contreras (WPLG).
In a dramatic courtroom scene just prior to receiving his 12-year prison sentence, a 54-year-old man from Florida attempted to cast himself as a victim after being convicted of killing his son.
David Contreras admitted guilt on Monday, accepting a manslaughter charge for the fatal shooting of his 21-year-old son, Eric Contreras, in Miami. The tragic incident occurred in 2023, shortly after the family returned from a trip to Disney World.
Expressing remorse, Contreras addressed the court, stating, “I’m sorry. This is something I can’t get back. I wish there was some way I could. I’m the one who has to live with it and I’ve accepted it,” as reported by local Fox affiliate WSVN.
However, Judge David Young was quick to challenge Contreras’s perceived self-pity.
“You have to live with it, sir?” the judge retorted, according to ABC affiliate WPLG. “Your wife has to live with it, sir. Your other son has to live with it, sir. Your future grandchildren have to live with it, sir. A lot of people. It’s horrible.”
David Contreras kept is head down as the judge lambasted him. Young then sentenced the killer to 12 years behind bars followed by a decade on probation.
The defendant killed his son on Nov. 3, 2023, after an argument and then called 911. The family had just returned from a trip to Disney World.
“I’d been fighting with my son and I lost it on him,” he told dispatchers, according to WPLG. “He wouldn’t stop.”
But prosecutors said evidence suggested Eric Contreras was kneeling or crouching down at the time he was killed. The elder Contreras was initially charged with second-degree murder before prosecutors allowed him to plead guilty to manslaughter.
Several friends and family members of the victim addressed the court about the impact he had on them.
“He was a young man who would have cared for his parents as they aged, who would have given them grandchildren, who wore his father’s spirit and his father’s name,” friend Jose Alfonso told the court, WPLG reported. “David took from the world the very person that loved him the most.”
Eric Contreras’ girlfriend also delivered a victim impact statement.
“I found the love that people search their whole entire lives for,” she told the court, per WSVN.